=== Aum Shinrikyo
1. AUM guru may undergo mental tests

=== Falun Gong
2. falungong leader savages ''wicked'' Chinese leadership
3. China's crackdown on falungong sect rooted in fear and ignorance: members
4. China Jails 13 More Falun Gong Activists

=== Unification Church
5. Ministers upset by Moon visit
6. Rev. Moon's event raises local hackles
7. In Oakland, Moon Stresses Family
8. Rev. Moon delivers message in Oakland
9. The Reverend Moon's Comeback

=== Islam
10. 2 Bamyan Buddhas completely destroyed, reports AIP
11. Taliban vows to keep thumbing nose at the world
12. Taliban close BBC Kabul office
13. The anti-Buddhist fury in Afghanistan

=== Catholicism
14. Ranking Congressmen Support Suspect Religious Group

=== Mormonism
15. Skinhead Church
16. 'It Isn't A Sunday Religion. It's A Lifetime Change.'

=== Hate Groups
17. FindLaw Forum: Court should have heard KKK case
18. Haider the Rightist Is Firing Up Vienna's Election With Slurs

=== Other News
19. Novato 'Diploma Mill' Shut Down by State
20. Leader Of Religious Group, Son Charged With Molestation
21. Man charged with DUI and fired after drinking kava sues employer
22. Elementary may be closed due to polygamists withdrawal
23. 'Fairy' pictures fetch £6,000

=== Faith-Based Initiatives

24. Christian leaders pan Bush's faith plan
25. Cult fear hits Bush plan to fund by faith
26. Poll: Americans approve of Bush
27. Delay on Faith-Aid Plan Puts Time on Bush's Side
28. Senate To Introduce Religion Plan

=== Human Rights Violations

29. Amnesty International Condemns Sentencing of 14-year-old Boy to Life Imprisonment Without Possibility of Parole

=== Noted
30. Hearing From Dearly Departed Proves a Hit on Sci-Fi Channel

=== Trends
31. Claim of 'Post-Denominational Era' Defied
32. It's chic to be a Protestant in France


=== Falun Gong

2. falungong leader savages ''wicked'' Chinese leadership
AFP, Mar. 15, 2001
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The leader of China's banned falungong spiritual movement used a rare public statement to taunt communist leaders in Beijing he accused of presiding over a ''wicked dictatorship.''

Li Hongzhi, who lives in exile in New York, defended his group in the statement read by a spokesman Wednesday at a meeting in the US Congress, and bemoaned the fate of followers subjected to a crackdown by the authorities.

Practitioners had used the teachings of his movement, which meshes Buddhist-based philosophy and meditation exercises, to become ''physically healthy,'' Li said.

''All of this severely threatens the weak nature of the party,'' Li said through the spokesman at a ceremony organized by the Freedom House rights group honoring religious organizations in China it said were persecuted.

''The goodness challenges their evil nature,'' Li said and branded China's political system a ''wicked dictatorship.''

The statement came three days before Chinese vice-premier Qian Qichen is due in the United States for talks on Beijing's already rocky relations with the new administration of President George W. Bush.
(...)

Li thanked the US government and the American people for supporting falungong in his statement.

The State Department frequently calls on Beijing to release all group members detained for peacefully exercising rights to ''freedom of religion, freedom of belief and freedom of conscience.''

The Freedom House event was called to honor falungong and four other groups it said were battling religious repression in China.

Groups also honored were the Cardinal Kung Foundation, Friends of the Christian Unregistered Churches, the International Campaign for Tibet and the American Uighur Foundation.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


3. China's crackdown on falungong sect rooted in fear and ignorance: members
AFP, Mar. 15, 2001
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Persecuted practitioners of falungong now living abroad said Wednesday that China's crackdown on the banned spiritual movement was rooted in the Communist Party's ignorance and fear.

''The major reason (for the crackdown) is the Communist Party. They've never understood falungong practices. There are no political messages, just spiritual exercises,'' said Jimmy Zou, a Chinese-born American who spent six days in a Beijing jail last year for performing falungong exercises.

''The government sees so many people thinking differently than the Communist Party, and they are scared that too many people will have a different ideology,'' he said, adding: ''The Communist Party wants to control people's minds.''

Jimmy Zou was one of four Chinese guests who spoke Wednesday in Stockholm to help raise awareness about the mistreatment of falungong supporters and other human rights violations in China.
(...)

But Kunlung Zhang, a 60-year-old Chinese-Canadian practitioner, stressed that the crackdown was not supported by the whole government. Rather, he said, the persecution was led mainly by Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
(...)

The falungong members said that despite the regular mistreatment, they would not call for sanctions against Beijing.

Such measures were ''totally ruled out'', said Mimmi Svensson, a practitioner in Sweden, adding: ''Anyone who follows the teachings knows that there is no room for that in falungong. Instead we appeal to people's hearts to see the truth.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


4. China Jails 13 More Falun Gong Activists
Reuters, Mar. 13, 2001
http://www.insidechina.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
BEIJING, Mar 13, 2001 -- (Reuters) A court in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin jailed 13 members of the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement this week for up to six years for protesting and distributing sect pamphlets, a local newspaper said.

The sentences reported in Tianjin's Jinwan Bao evening newspaper on Monday bring to 50 the number of members of Falun Gong jailed this month in Beijing and Tianjin alone.
(...)

Last week, exiled Falun Gong leader Li Hongzhi issued a statement on the group's website saying China's crackdown was futile and that adherents who had recanted their beliefs under duress would resume their practices.

''Although many people have been beaten to death, beaten to disability, or sent to mental hospitals, this has not changed true cultivators' steadfast, righteous thoughts,'' Li wrote in a March 4 message on the website www.clearwisdom.net.

China, which asserts that Falun Gong is a brainwashing ''evil cult'', says it has arrested more than 150 protest organizers. But authorities deny allegations of abuse, saying they treat ordinary followers with lenience.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

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